When I was one
and twenty,
"Rise
up, lad!" said the world.
"Your bark is built and fitted,
Your
sails yet unfurled.

"The Golden
realms that beckon,The
oceans to be crossed
Call you to the landing, lad,Ere
the tide be lost."

My humble cottage
on the hill,The
boyhood years I'd spent
In quiet solitude now seemedA
land of lost content.

I hied me to the
harborAnd
took the tide that ran
Beneath my cottage on the hill,And
so my voyage began.

On ocean-seas to
distant shoresThrough
storms without relent
I sailed onward to escapeThe
land of lost content.

And long I ate
the salt-sea wave.My
body felt the cat.
I knew the grog, the scurvy,The
brig and bilge and rat.

But I, at least,
was sailing!And
I was glad I went,
For every anchorage was inA
land of lost content.

As seaman, I was
sorely flogged.As
mate, I held the whip.
Then years as first lieutenant,Then
captain of the ship.

From the Arctic
to the Congo,For
one and forty years,
I navigated skillfullyBy
sun and moon and stars.

But every port
where I put in,In
sultry climes or cold,
Was just a land of lost content,And
not the realms of Gold.

I chose a sailor's
life for fair,But
still I must lament
That even Neptune's KingdomWas
a land of lost content.
My journey done, I'm home again.The
cottage on the hill
And quiet solitude are mineTo
value as I will.

The gilded lands
of lost contentWere
everywhere I'd been,
But not of earth and water, lads.They
were the realms within.